[News] How Many Companies Like Microsoft Fake "Open Source"

Four Tricks Companies Use to Feign Openness

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| 1. Joining an 'Openness' Consortium...
|
| 2. Creating an Arbitrarily Open Standard...
|
| 3. Rebranding Existing Features...
|
| 4. Buying Into (and Locking Up) an Existing Open Standard
| Big businesses are great at jumping on bandwagons. But even when they chase a
| revolutionary idea like openness, it's only a matter of time before it's back
| to business as usual. Take for instance Microsoft's foray into Linux
| territory. The software giant wet its beak in the open source movement by
| partnering with Novell to distribute its own version of the operating system.
| But after briefly playing nice, Redmond went on a saber rattling campaign
| claiming that Linux violates 235 of its patents. Guess who Microsoft granted
| amnesty from its would-be legal assault? That's right -- Linux users who had
| bought into Microsoft's version of "openness.
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| ¬* ¬* * Microsoft is trying to look like it's all about interoperability
| ¬* ¬* through futile projects like Mono, Moonlight, and patent agreements with
| ¬* ¬* Novell and also-ran Linux vendors. But these deals are really nothing
| ¬* ¬* more than a way to tax open-source innovation to ensure open source is
| ¬* ¬* hobbled by Microsoft's fees. ¬* ¬*
|
|
| And so on. Microsoft is much more open about its intentions vis-a-vis open
| source. That doesn't mean it's any more supportive of open source. It just
| means that it's getting easier to glean from public documents how the company
| feels about open source. ¬*
|
| We don't need Halloween Documents to read the tea leaves on Microsoft and
| open source. We just need to pay attention to what the company is doing. In
| the open. On an increasing basis. ¬*
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| Given the OSI‚Äôs stated desire to reduce the number of open source licenses,
| not increase them, I asked the OSI board why they had approved it. ‚ÄúWe won‚Äôt
| approve licenses that are too similar to existing licenses‚ÄĚ, board member
| Russ Nelson responded in an email. However he praised the licenses for being
| simply written, for addressing trademarks and patents, and for not naming a
| specific jurisdiction. ¬* ¬*
|
| Is that enough to differentiate them? Not according to Greg Stein of the
| Apache Foundation, who is opposed to the creation and use of new licenses
| when existing, popular licenses already do the job. ‚ÄúLicense proliferation,‚ÄĚ
| he writes, ‚Äúslows development and discourages usage by making it more
| difficult to combine and remix code.‚ÄĚ ¬* ¬*
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| Things got really interesting when Chris DiBona, longtime OSI member, open
| source advocate, and open source programs manager for Google, Inc. chimed in:
|
| ¬* ¬* I would like to ask what might be perceived as a diversion and maybe even
| ¬* ¬* a mean spirited one. Does this submission to the OSI mean that Microsoft
| ¬* ¬* will: ¬*
|
| ¬* ¬* a) Stop using the market confusing term Shared Source
| ¬* ¬* b) Not place these licenses and the other, clearly non-free , non-osd
| ¬* ¬* licenses in the same place thus muddying the market further.
| ¬* ¬* c) Continue its path of spreading misinformation about the nature of
| ¬* ¬* open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL?
| ¬* ¬* d) Stop threatening with patents and oem pricing manipulation schemes
| ¬* ¬* to deter the use of open source software?
|
| ¬* ¬* If not, why should the OSI approve of your efforts? That of a company who
| ¬* ¬* has called those who use the licenses that OSI purports to defend a
| ¬* ¬* communist or a cancer? Why should we see this seeking of approval as
| ¬* ¬* anything but yet another attack in the guise of friendliness? ¬* ¬*
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| Of course, they are not. Other Shared Source licenses may very well be too
| restrictive to be considered Open Source. But, Microsoft may conveniently
| divert the attention from this little detail to the fact that some of
| Shared Source licenses are Open Source. ¬*
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| Head of open-source group says more than half of licenses don't pass muster
|
| [...]
|
| Michael Tiemann, president of the non-profit Open Source Initiative, said
| that provisions in three out of five of Microsoft's shared-source licenses ¬*
| that restrict source code to running only on the Windows operating system
| would contravene a fundamental tenet of open-source licenses as laid out by
| the OSI. By those rules, code must be free for anyone to view, use, modify as
| they see fit. ¬* ¬*
|
| [...]
|
| By his count, the OSI has rejected "two dozen" or so license applications for
| language that restricted the use or redistribution of software and its source
| code, even when the restrictions were written with what Tiemann
| called "moral" intent. For instance, the OSI has rejected license
| applications from Quakers and other pacifists who sought to prevent the use
| of software for weapons such as landmines. ¬* ¬*
|
| "I am highly sympathetic to that point of view," he said. "But the OSI is not
| in the business of legislating moral use. We allow all use, commercial or
| non-commercial, mortal or medical." ¬*
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| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively
| being allowed to define the meaning of ‚Äúopen source‚ÄĚ as it wishes, not as
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above,
| an open source project is ‚Äúnot commercially distributed by its
| participants‚ÄĚ - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ. ¬* ¬* ¬*
|
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as
| officially ‚Äúopen source‚ÄĚ is only going to make things worse. Although I felt
| this was the right decision ‚Äď to have ad hoc rules just because it's
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who
| thought they understood what open source meant. ¬* ¬* ¬*
|
| [...]
|
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but
| related fields ‚Äď open source, open file formats and open standards. All are
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the ¬*
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like ‚Äúopen
| source‚ÄĚ will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness. ¬* ¬*
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